now TERNI, in Ancient Geography, a celebrated city of Umbria, standing on a small island in the River Nar, now the Nera, about three miles below the celebrated cascade of the Velinus. It is said to have been founded 80 years before Rome itself, and, from its position in one of the most fertile districts of Italy, early attained great wealth and prosperity. So fertile was its territory that, according to Pliny, the meadows near the town bore four crops of hay a-year. His testimony is borne out by the historian Tacitus, who is generally, though on doubtful grounds, described as a native of the place. Its importance did not diminish when it passed under the Roman yoke; and, though it suffered severely in the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, the latter of whom confiscated its territory and portioned it out among his veterans, it easily recovered its losses, and became as important as ever. Though it stood a few miles from the main trunk of the Via Flaminia, yet a branch of that highway passed through it, which, under the empire, became the principal thoroughfare. In the political history of Rome the name of Interamna is seldom met with. In the civil wars of the first century after Christ it was taken by Arrius Varus, the general of Vespasian, from the garrison that held it for Vitellius. In A.D. 253 the emperors Trebonianus Gallus and his son Volusianus, when hastening to crush the rebel Æmilian in Moesia, were put to death by their own soldiers in this town.

Interamna was at an early age made an episcopal see. This distinction it continued to retain through the middle ages till the present day. Under the name of Terni it continues to thrive; and is interesting from the number and value of its antiquities. Its present population is about 10,000.